Route 17

Blogs can go either way -- both good. Sometimes we react quickly, perhaps too quickly, to events. But when news is breaking, as was the case with the flotilla, blogs are a way to share information and emotion immediately.

While there's been no shortage of Jews who insist that Israel was wrong to stop and board the terrorist flotilla. there's been a curious disconnect. Most of the Jews who got the most sea-sick by Israel's self-defense are the same Jews who constantly want Israel pressured to get more involved in the peace process.

But what do the existing agreements of the peace process have to say about Israel's rights to control the waters off the Gaza coast?

In light of the flotilla, here's an interesting piece looking at Turkish provocations and Israeli roll-overs, from last winter's Azure, "A State In Need Of A Spine." Israel didn't get "credit" or public relations points for appeasement, it got the flotilla disaster, and nothing that came before mattered.. Weakness was what Israel advertised and that worked as well as ever. A prescient piece from February.

The beauty of the almost unanimous international condemnation of Israel for attempting to stop the terrorist flotilla like gentlemen -- using paint guns? -- instead of using serious military force, should send a message to Jews: You can't win by being polite to terrorists who have a schoolyard bully mentality. Weakness brings out even more outrageous behavior in bullies.

We've established previously that Peter Beinart lied about Netanyahu not supporting the Oslo accords, when he did support the Oslo accords, and that Beinart, when not lying is distorting, such as claiming that Netanyahu opposed a Palestinian state -- which he did oppose in 1993, without Beinart adding the all-important fact that Netanyahu supports a Palestinian state today.

67: Merchant vessels flying the flag of neutral States may not be attacked unless they:

(a) are believed on reasonable grounds to be carrying contraband or breaching a blockade, and after prior warning they intentionally and clearly refuse to stop, or intentionally and clearly resist visit, search or capture;

For all that we hear about the flotilla being a humanitarian mission, they refused the request of Gilad Shalit's father to even ask to see Gilad, who has not been visited by the Red Cross or any other humanitarian group in three years. Some people don't like it when the Palestinians are compared to the Nazis. In fact, in this respect they are worse than the Nazis.

Summer's here and the city child's heart turns to Coney Island. This is a Jewish paper so here's the Jewish angle. Jennifer Miller may not be the only bearded lady but she's the only Jewish women in the Coney Island Freak Show Hall of Fame. You don't want to know how many of the men in this Hall are Jewish.

I met Jennifer a while back, while doing a story on Coney Island, and I enjoyed her intelligence and company.